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The sixteenth Discworld novel.

About the Author

Terry Pratchett was the acclaimed creator of the global bestselling Discworld series, the first of which, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983. In all, he was the author of over fifty bestselling books which have sold over 100 million copies worldwide. His novels have been widely adapted for stage and screen, and he was the winner of multiple prizes, including the Carnegie Medal. He was awarded a knighthood for services to literature in 2009, although he always wryly maintained that his greatest service to literature was to avoid writing any.

www.terrypratchettbooks.com

Reviews

'Pratchett lures classical themes and popular mythologies into the dark corners of his imagination, gets them drunk and makes them do things you wouldn't dream of doing with an Oxford don'
*Daily Mail*

'Very clever madcap satire which has universal appeal. If you haven't tried him, this is a fun one to start with'
*Today*

'The great Terry Pratchett, whose wit is metaphysical, who creates an energetic and lively secondary world, who has a multifarious genius for strong parody ... who deals with death with startling originality. Who writes amazing sentences'
*New York Times*

'His spectacular inventiveness makes the Discworld series one of the perennial joys of modern fiction'
*Mail on Sunday*

'Like Jonathan Swift, Pratchett uses his other world to hold up a distorting mirror to our own, and like Swift he is a satirist of enormous talent ... incredibly funny ... compulsively readable'
*The Times*

Nepotism is given an unusual spin in Pratchett's 14th Discworld novel, as Death's granddaughter picks up the scythe when the Grim Reaper takes a vacation. Trolls, dwarves, magicians and rock music‘music played with rocks‘figure in this amusing but overlong romp, which begins with the formation of a band by aspiring musician Imp y Celen (aka Buddy). Arriving in the city of Ankh-Morpork, Buddy finds a magical guitar which enables the group‘a rock-playing troll, an ax-wielding dwarf and an Orangutan pianist‘to drive crowds wild. But the instrument causes conflict between the motley crew and Susan, Death's granddaughter, who is just adjusting to her new post. Many of the ensuing comic situations involve Death trying to get drunk, though Pratchett's liberal application of jokes scores as many misses as hits. Extraneous plot information slows the pace as the narrative rattles to a colossal, albeit uninspired, conclusion. Science Fiction Book Club main selection. (Feb.)

'Pratchett lures classical themes and popular mythologies into the dark corners of his imagination, gets them drunk and makes them do things you wouldn't dream of doing with an Oxford don' * Daily Mail *

'Very clever madcap satire which has universal appeal. If you haven't tried him, this is a fun one to start with'

'His spectacular inventiveness makes the Discworld series one of the perennial joys of modern fiction'

'Like Jonathan Swift, Pratchett uses his other world to hold up a distorting mirror to our own, and like Swift he is a satirist of enormous talent ... incredibly funny ... compulsively readable'